Save Darfur Coalition

rdf:langString Save Darfur Coalition

rdf:langString The Save Darfur Coalition was an advocacy group that called "to raise public awareness and mobilize a massive response to the atrocities in Sudan's western region of Darfur." Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it was a coalition of more than 190 religious, political and human rights organizations designed to campaign for a response to the atrocities of the War in Darfur. The result has become a global humanitarian crisis. Today, reports indicate that the conflict has claimed approximately 300,000 lives as a result of ethnic cleansing, disease and starvation and has displaced over 2.5 million people. The war began when two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked government installations in Darfur in response to the Khartoum government's increasing economic and political marginalization of the non-Arab population. The Sudanese government retaliated and recruited local Arab militias known as the Janjaweed ("devils on horseback") to systematically rape and murder all minority populations. In 2011, in order to create a more effective and collective voice dedicated to preventing and eliminating genocidal violence, the Genocide Intervention Network and the Save Darfur Coalition merged to establish United to End Genocide. The merger created the largest anti-genocide campaign that encompasses a membership base of over 800,000 global activists, a mass student movement, and a network of institutional investors with over $700 billion in assets.